 This possession is already wearing out. I know because the lymph nodes in her neck swell bulbous under her fake tan, my temporary home in her fleshy nail beds curling inward, black and rotten and permanent.

Possession Rot

Mom gives me a copy of House of Leaves for my seventeenth birthday, and I know I should be grateful that she’s trying more since Dad left, but no, I don’t want a book about a house with labyrinths.

This Place Is Not for My Pain

The irony isn’t lost on me —
the sushi on my plate speaks,
how tragic. 

Alyssa Pearl

Selected work